Emmanuel Eboue will undergo a ‘mini pre-season’ on Wearside next week when Sunderland jet out to Dubai for their warm weather training camp.

The former Arsenal defender is currently training with the Black Cats in an effort to prove his fitness and earn a contract.

But boss Sam Allardyce says Eboue - who is a free agent after leaving Turkish club Galatasaray last summer and can therefore sign outside the transfer window - will not travel to the Middle East as the rest of the squad takes advantage of the fortnight break until the next game after Saturday’s home clash with Manchester United.

Instead the 32-year-old Ivory Coast international will work on his fitness at the Academy of Light.

“No, he won’t come to Dubai,” said Allardyce.

“He will stay here and do some pre-season work.

“I’m not sure what he has been doing before he came here.

“But he’ll have to do a mini pre-season, coming in mornings and afternoons and a couple of U21 games, and then when we come back we’ll probably have a behind-closed-doors game.

“At the end of that, we can decide whether we are going to do it or not.”

Allardyce says Eboue must build up his fitness gradually, pointing out that it would be self-defeating to push him too far, too fast.

He said: “You can only fast-track a player so far, without putting his body under too much fatigue.

“Get it wrong and he could easily get a tear or a twinge in a muscle, and that would defeat the object then.

“Getting him fit, and keeping him clear of injury, is the most important thing over the next couple of weeks.

“He joined in training yesterday, and he is a bubbly character. I like him!”

Sunderland were looking to add a right-back in the January transfer window to challenge Billy Jones and on-loan Spurs man DeAndre Yedlin, but a loan move for Arsenal’s former Newcastle United defender Mathieu Debuchy broke down.

Allardyce feels that is still an area of his squad that needs strengthening, however, and Eboue is a option.

He added: “There’s no hiding the fact that we were looking for that position, and that should spur the other lads in that position on say ‘you’re not going to replace me’.

“Billy has got a lot of experience and we’ve got DeAndre, who has got very little experience at this level.

“He [Yedlin] has got a lot of qualities but without that experience, it’s a massive ask to perform at the consistent level that you need to at this stage of the season, under the pressure that we’re all under.

“Emmanuel Eboue has got a fantastic pedigree at Arsenal and if he has got any capability to produce what he did at Arsenal, we’ll assess that over the next few weeks.”

Eboue spent six years at Arsenal, making more than 200 appearances for the Gunners, before joining Galatasaray in a £3m deal in 2011.